This process is an improvement over that disclosed in Mansfield U.S. Pat. No. 3,969,088 wherein sized green coal starting material is devolatilized by successively passing it through a horizontal chain grate pre-carbonizer furnace having a zoned airbox, and a shaft furnace, i.e., a soaking pit, then crushed and mixed with pitch binder, formed into green briquettes, and then recirculated with the green coal starting material through the pre-carbonizer furnace. In that process the green briquettes were cured in the oxidizing atmosphere of the pre-carbonizer furnace simultaneously with the partial devolatilization of the green coal starting material. Also, in that process, the pitch binder was obtained by downdrafting the first few airbox zones so as to pull off the low temperature volatiles, and then condensing them. In the subject process, however, the green briquettes are tempered prior to recycling through the pre-carbonizer furnace with the incoming green coal and they are imposed as an overburden onto the green coal bed at a point downstream from where it is introduced onto the chain grate. A somewhat comparable formcoke process, without the tempering step, is disclosed in Scott et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,156,595.